The 400 Club

by Joshua Worley

Both Loney and Kemp are batting over 0.400 on the season. They are putting a fierce purpose behind their talent and spraying the ball hard everywhere, and right now the singles are falling in, the doubles are scorching over, and even a few home runs are booming. Just two home runs, so far, but they will hit more.

I was hoping one of them might hit a home run tonight, especially off this young fly ball pitcher Sonnanstine. The Dodgers took full advantage of his fly ball tendencies in the second inning, as I hoped they would, scoring two off of a home run, a pair of doubles, and a fly out flown amok on a shaky throw. It's funny --- while Ethier's double didn't result in a run, it did make the second run Sonnanstine allowed in the inning become earned instead of unearned.

Lowe faltered again toward the end of his outing, as he sometimes does. It's easy to see when it's happening, though always impossible to predict the damage that might occur. He'll start to allow more balls hit in the air, and the grounders will start to be harder, but that doesn't mean a home run is coming. But tonight one did. Grady did the right thing in pulling him right after the bomb by Delmon Young, clearly, and I would say that even if Seanez had gone on to cough up the lead there. Delmon Young played like a future version of himself in this game, going 3 for 4 with the home run.

The young guys on the Dodgers are just so fun to watch, though the very best highlight of the game for me was seeing two slow wily veterans hit consecutive stand up triples. But the youth is just so much more consistently fun to watch. I don't want to wane pessimistic about Loney and Kemp's chances of playing tomorrow even with their combined 5 for 9 this past game, so I won't. I just hope to see them batting one after the other many more times this season. The thing is, they shouldn't be batting 0.400. If they were playing as much as they should, they wouldn't be batting so high. Such a thing can't last for any hitter. So please, Grady, boot them out of the 400 club as soon as possible!